SUZY COHEN
The current medical system isn’t on your side. Some physicians don’t stay current with the literature, or if they do, they are reading drug-funded studies. Some docs actually still believe what they were taught 30 years ago in medical school. How does that help you?
When a physician uses knowledge from an outdated toolbox, you pay the price. Case in point, I received this email from someone, name withheld:

“Suzy, I’ve had all the tests for thyroid but they all come back fine, yet for years I’ve been losing hair on top of my head, and I have no leg or pubic hair, the driest skin, and dry eyes. So on and so on and now my bladder is overactive. Do you think I have a thyroid problem?”
So does this person have thyroid disease? Probably, although, we’d need lab tests to confirm. If you go to 100 doctors and ask them to test your thyroid, about 98 of them will use the standard “TSH” test and if it’s normal, they will tell you that you do not have thyroid disease, like my anonymous reader above. They will treat you for everything but thyroid!
The TSH test is old and outdated and if you base your life on the results of this test, you’ll never get well. You’ll be prescribed 10 different drugs to smack down all the symptoms of thyroid disease, rather than ever treating the thyroid disease itself. Imagine the arcade game Whac-A-Mole!
If your physician uses only the TSH test and it is normal, you may be told you have fibromyalgia and be given analgesics for the muscle pain, and you’ll be diagnosed with either depression or anxiety and be prescribed either Zoloft or Xanax (or both), and you’ll be sent to the pharmacy for Rogaine for the hair loss and Detrol LA for the overactive bladder. Good luck getting well. All this expense, and misery because your TSH came back normal. A TSH can be normal and it’s still very possible that you have some degree of hypothyroidism, or you are genuinely “thyroid sick” as I refer to it in my book, “Thyroid Healthy” available at my website, and Amazon.
Maybe instead of 10 drugs you need 1 drug as in thyroid medicine or maybe natural thyroid dietary supplementation, or a combination. A good doctor will know. Forget about the TSH test, it’s just okay. It’s part of a bigger scenario. The most important tests are the following: Total T3, Total T4, Free T3, Free T4, TPO and TG Antibodies, Reverse T3 and Ferritin.
I’m out of space here, but I have suggested “normals” that are much different from those on your lab tests. If you go to my website suzycohen.com and sign up for my newsletter, I’ll give you a free ebook, plus I will email you longer version of this article that includes the tests, and the normal reference ranges so you can compare your lab numbers to my recommended values.